Now, under one hand, I found her as a presenter top notch, I appreciated not simply being read to, but on the other hand, I didn’t agree with exactly everything she had to say – yes, of course our architecture has been influenced by that of the Romans, but I don’t necessarily agree that this comes from a deep connection with the Romans, I think ours is more of a rip off of England’s rip off than anything else – Americans in general have always wanted to establish a new and yet old type of history for themselves, a bunch of “radicals” hunting for a history, a precedence to fall back on, and the Romans just happen to have a history that’s been smorgasborded by so many other countries already, why not us? Why can’t we be the best version of the same old same old – and she did touch on that a bit, but I think she could’ve done more with it (though granted, I know that’s what her book is for :p).
I did appreciate her discussion over how our concept of history is accentuated in this Roman connection, how it’s become a totally linear, “progressive” view, though I think the term “line segment view” is better. An event begins and ends, boom, history, versus the more complex, fuller idea of history as a never ending line SPIRALING forward, not a strict cyclical doowap and not an overly simplistic straight beam shooting onward and onward.
I did dig how she came about the notion of thinking on America in this way, via Caesar’s Palace in Vegas, good stuff, as Gaines said: a time traveler and border-crosser. I also really enjoyed the issue of American identity that she glanced over: America as the New Rome versus America as the New Jerusalem. I wish she’d gone further into that as well, but again, that’s why books are for.
Now, when she brought up the conquest of Hawaii, the Philippines, and Cuba as an example of our assuming Rome’s old banner of empire and wanting to be a better Rome than Britain, I had a few qualms. Fortunately, she addressed the big one but I still feel a bit restless about it. What grabbed me was the unfairness of this label because, especially with the Philippines and Chttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifuba, there was this excuse created, the idea of being a protectorate force rather than a conquering one because so many Americans began to take issue with becoming an imperialist nation. A lot of propaganda started pumping out anti-imperialist, one of my favorite political cartoons being,
which depicts ol’ Will McKinley considering imperialistic moves on the Philippines while ignoring the obvious and terrible issues persisting at home.
Her answer to this was something to the effect that America wanted both the Republican Ideals and Imperialist Pleasures of the late, “great” Rome, and that was reflected more in our architectural homage to them rather in our collective agreement that we were/are the New Rome.
As for the Panel discussion, really, it just made me wish I’d made it to something more specific, since it felt like the entire presentation was more made up of bullet points that each speaker either had forgotten about before or wanted to make sure and reiterate, a sort of sum-up for the thinning audience. There was some interesting discussion on the extreme detachment of the very rich from the rest of society and how this shapes the Imperialist Ideal versus the extremely wealthy but philanthropic of the 19th century America versus the “God through Wealth”/divine right mentality that tends to go with our super-wealthy of today. There were also interesting questions raised about where the heck were our revolts against the Republican empires of the Bush, Nixon, Reagan messes, etc. etc. etc.? Basically, as I said, a lot of random intrigues but nothing fantastically gripping. I have to say, compared to the last couple Brown Symposiums, I felt rather let down by this one. That’s probably just because this topic didn’t particularly fascinate me, but the fact that I was still there and still hopeful and still itchily disappointed felt strange and a little sad.
I’d love to be intrigued and crazed by everything, but at least I can recognize the significance, relevance, and importance of it even if I don’t get ultra-jazzed up about it, right? Isn’t that a big Paideia life goal?
Ciao for now, amigos
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